Yingying Zhang came to this country with one goal \u2014 to further her education, so she could take care of her family back in China.<\/b>
\nYingying Zhang came to this country with one goal \u2014 to further her education, so she could take care of her family back in China.
\u201cSince she was very young, she was very kind and really gets along with people and she cares what happens to the people surrounding her, \u201d her father, Ronggao Zhang, said in a recent interview with The News-Gazette. \u201cShe is very caring for her friends and other people she interacts with.\u201d
On Saturday, the day after the FBI arrested Brendt Christensen, 28, in connection with Ms. Zhang\u2019s kidnapping, authorities offered no new details about the case. Authorities said Friday night they believe the visiting University of Illinois scholar is no longer alive but Ms. Zhang has not been found.
A campus memorial tentatively planned for Saturday was called off by UI officials at the wishes of Ms. Zhang\u2019s family.
Anna Tsai, an assistant student affairs staff member who served as a translator for Ms. Zhang\u2019s family, met with them Friday night when the arrest was announced.
It was a very difficult time, \u201d she said.
\u201cAt this point, all I can say is that the family is very devastated and very sad, and just needs to find a way to sort through this, \u201d she said Saturday. \u201cObviously at this point, they\u2019 re still looking for the police to find Yingying.\u201d
Ronggao Zhang; his sister-in-law, Liqin Ye; and Ms. Zhang\u2019s boyfriend traveled to Champaign-Urbana from China on June 17 to join in the search for Yingying, who they described as serious-minded but fun and committed to her family and her education.
Ms. Zhang arrived in Champaign-Urbana on April 24. Although she had the opportunity to study at other universities, she chose the UI because of its \u201cvery prominent reputation in the field of agriculture, \u201d said Hou, her boyfriend and a Ph. D. student in agriculture at Peking University in China.
Ms. Zhang received her master\u2019s degree in environmental engineering last year from Peking University.
She met Hou about eight years ago in a college class. Their fields of study concerning crop productivity are similar.
The other main reason Zhang chose the UI, Hou said, was because she received enough money from a grant to afford to live and study here. She didn\u2019 t want to be a financial burden to her parents, he said.
Neither of her parents went to college. Her father works as a truck driver at an electrical company and her mother is a housewife. Her only sibling, brother Xin Yang Zhang, 24, did not go to college.
Ms. Zhang\u2019s plan, family and friends said, was to ultimately become an agriculture professor \u2014 maybe in China, maybe elsewhere.
\u201cShe was very excited to have the opportunity to come to the United States, not only to expand her research, but also more importantly to experience internationally and expand her views of various things and get a much broader perspective, \u201d Hou said in a recent interview.
It was a dreams of hers \u2014 \u201cfor a very long time, \u201d Hou said.
It was her first time in this country and her first major trip abroad, aside from once attending a professional conference in Holland, her boyfriend said.
Family members described Ms. Zhang as a self-sufficient, hard-working and studious young woman committed to her family back in Nanping in southeastern China.
Ms. Zhang\u2019s commitment to her studies left her little time for outside interests, although Hou she likes to sing and plays the guitar. Her favorite song, friends said, was \u201cThe Rose, \u201d by Bette Midler.
\u201cSince she was in grade school, she was the head of the class, \u201d her father said. \u201cIn grade school, they may have 30,40,50 students and the teacher would appoint someone to be the \u2018leader\u2019 of that classroom. Typically, that position goes to the best student in the class. She was always in that role since she was in grade school.\u201d<\/p>\n

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